General Hospital July 2014 Discussion

[Vee]

There is considerably more pushback on the airtime/story development issues online and in the press now than there ever was before, but part of that, I think, is how much worse it's gotten recently.

The truth is that Ron is trying to do too much and save the OLTL transplants as well, and he is not willing to let the basics of 5-day-a-week soap storytelling get in the way of trying to juggle all those balls in the air. If he did, one of the problem characters or one of his favorites would have to go and he won't allow that.

[ChitHappens]

moRon likes to use ridiculous scenes to show he "knows" history while not progressing these characters because they mean NOTHING to him. I didn't watch but I was reading what people thought and I could almost picture how heinous it was.

This is really truly without a doubt the bottom line. This show can't get better because that would mean Craptini might have to get rid of some pets and creations.

[Vee]

He started out doing that with Viki, Charlie, David and Dorian on OLTL. All of them had to be over 50 (except David) and they spent the summer months toodling away in this silly plot where Viki and Charlie fake a break-up and try to "romance" David and Dorian to reunite them with each other.

At the time, it was kind of cute and refreshing to see older characters played with the same vigor and mentality as the younger set - they're still viable, they still can have this kind of fun. But it quickly grew silly and immature, and it was all they did that summer. He's been doing a lot of that stuff with characters of this age since, especially on GH.

He did the Bobbie/Lucy catfight because it was fun to him. Ron does a lot of things just because he finds them "fun", he has at both shows, and sometimes they are fun, but more and more over the last few years they are more demeaning to the characters than anything else. He doesn't care, because he's amused and he thinks the veteran actors can handle it and make it work. See also: Tracy. He believes they're talented and beloved enough to make anything fly, but at the same time he is making fools of the characters. Taking their talent for granted.

And sure, I think FV's taping setup definitely feeds right into this mentality about the ADD storytelling. But they didn't always mount story like this. Even when it was bad story, it didn't used to be largely offscreen.

[ChitHappens]

LMAO!!!!!

[KMan101]

RC isn't stupid, IMO. He knows exactly what he's doing and knows exactly what he's doing when he tweets his ridiculous nonsense. He wouldn't get SOOOO defensive if he truly believed he was right. He knows he's wrong but will never admit it.

[KMan101]

YES! The Viki/Charlie/Dorian/David comparison is 100% spot on. That annoyed me. And it was also clear he was doing the same things he did at OLTL that are now on GH. Weeks on end without seeing people, weeks on end of the same people .... and yes, it was sort of cute at first because it was nice that the vets were just dishing advice or pouring coffee or showing up for Christmas, but then it gets played way too silly and the characters should just be smarter than that to act like teenagers.

WORD on Tracy. Just like Carly looks absolutely ridiculous for being with Franco whether anyone thinks she and Roger have chemistry or not. It never ever should have happened, or at least it shouldn't be written the way it has been. Fighting over Sonny makes some sense to me but Roger plays Franco as a jealous teenager and it all just falls flat to me. Nothing about it makes sense to me. And like Anna looks totally ridiculous as police chief. I know she's not a fan of Scott but having her be so flippant about the drugs in the town made me cringe.

I also agree that he writes things he finds fun, or clever and IMO, he's relying too much on that and not relying on actual storytelling. I used to give him some credit for planting seeds and then bringing it up a while later, and I appreciate that, but now I just think he starts stuff, puts it off and then remembers later, or he just lucks out.

The story balancing is all off. Characters should be interacting that don't for months on end. It's terrible. I blame the scheduling as well but I'm just confused how it works, TBH. Are they scheduling actors and then Ron/the writers have to work around that? Do they write first them schedule, then cut? I know I'm not making sense but I hope someone can clearly lay out the procedure because to me, what they're doing may save money, etc. but it's not working.

[ChitHappens]

moRon is completely inept, but stupid he is not. I can't imagine sucking this hard at my job, keeping it and getting a fat paycheck. He's not a writer, and he knows it. When you are called out publicly on being so bad, that has to sting, but that does not mean he's not aware of his shortcomings.

[Vee]

I think there are certain things he's still very good at. The problem is most of those techniques are now in service of all the wrong stories.

For example, Ron loves to tie a lot of disparate stories together. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Take Levi. At first I thought he was just going to be an obnoxious spoiler to Nathan and Maxie, but now, with all the skullduggery, I'm beginning to think other fans are right, that he has another purpose - I'm thinking he works for Fluke/Eckert and this will be revealed in the fall, that he may not even be Australian (hence the bit where he called the judge on Maxie with a perfect American accent). Sure, that's a decent bit of umbrella story work, but honestly I'm already sick of Levi right now. Does everything have to connect, even the really annoying stuff?

Maxie's another example of this, BTW. Ron loves Kirsten Storms, thinks she can handle anything they throw at her, so Maxie, like Tracy before her, is made monumentally stupid on a level previously unheard of to support this story. All it's doing is making both of them incredibly unlikable as Maxie whines about Nathan (the only person paying rent in her apartment!) and I didn't know Maxie could be any more unlikable than she was last year. I had just begun giving her another chance, then Levi entered the picture in a major way. Now I'm tired of looking at her and hearing from her all over again.

Same thing with Lynn Herring and Lucy, bopping between Kevin and Scott with no real precursor this week - it was fine to play an affair story but not without beats after the Nurses Ball. Now Lucy just looks completely thoughtless. But Ron loves Lynn Herring and Lucy, knows she can handle it. Jane Elliott, same thing. Finola Hughes, Kimberly McCullough. He did the same things with Robin Strasser and Dorian on OLTL, or Melissa Archer. And especially with Susan Haskell and Kassie DePaiva, although Susan ended up leaving the show completely disgusted with this team and refused to return for the end.

As for the vet issue, I like when the vets get played in their own romances and little stories. I like it even when they sometimes get silly or a little immature, because people can be immature at any age and because I think it does good for the new audience to see characters like that as viable and lively as the younger set. Which is why I tolerated or at times enjoyed past stories like the V/C/D/D thing on OLTL, even when it got silly, or the earlier phase of the Scott/Lucy/Kevin triangle, which I thought was working okay in the winter. But when it gets totally juvenile, as it has now, or when it's entirely offscreen?

For the record, I also don't think the story/time issues were nearly as bad at OLTL. It got close near the end with some storylines (anything with Eddie Alderson, who was deemed un-Fordly), but I don't remember quite these many huge jumps in story or character development with people taking weeks and weeks on end offscreen. It also had to do with OLTL's cast being smaller (though still quite big). IMO this is learned behavior that has grown at GH with an even bigger cast and a very, very tight budget. I think FV and RC think they have got their budgeting and scheduling down to a "science," and that Ron's "streamlined" storytelling is what makes it work.

[alexisfan07]

I did mention they had to massively overhaul the Lucy/Scott/Bobbie story so that's probably where these cat fight scenes came from. It wasn't going in this direction originally so that's how Lucy "choosing" Scott yesterday and fighting with Bobbie came to be out of the blue - it literally was.

I think a lot of soap fans think they understand all the things the producers and writers have to balance, especially behind the scenes, but I assure you, you don't.

[Vee]

I like to think I've been about as understanding as I can be up to the point of being called an apologist.

[ChitHappens]

I won't pretend to understand or think I can do this job because I can't, but it might be a little bit more doable w/out so many cast members. Rocket science is not necessary to know that these newbies are out of control. I honesty think adding so many characters with little time between arrivals is really a confession of not knowing what to do with characters long term.

None of the other soaps seem to have this challenge, now do they?

[JONNYSBRO]

if JFP was still at the helm there would be no Jackie period. They didn't get along. She was GHs Robin Strasser. Also JFP told Lynn Herring she saw zero place for Lucy either. They don't have the money to pay for Jackie's contract so we take what we get.

[Vee]

I think every soap has these kind of challenges. And there's always more than we know, especially with people and logistics. And I think this team more than most in recent years has fought to overcome all sorts of constraints with scheduling, timing, money, etc., at two different soaps. I give them credit for that, because there were all sorts of BTS stories both at OLTL and now at GH. And some of those stories did not reflect well on them but some of them were good, especially what they did for John Ingle which I will always be very grateful for. And good or bad, you always know they're in the present moment trying to work something or respond to some bit of immediate feedback; even when they're adding in another stupid [!@#$%^&*] in-joke from recent weeks or months in online fandom, you don't get the sense that they're like DAYS, closed off and in their own world, beyond the Milky Way shooting more Dannifer scenes for 2016. The difference is that, even though it's not to my taste, DAYS fans seem very happy with most of their show today.

As a fan I can only know a fraction of what goes on BTS, even when I am bothering to look into it. And I can be very sympathetic, but my consideration reached its limits with GH a while ago.

[JONNYSBRO]

Oh yeah Ron is so stupid he had the highest increases at any ABC show, got his contract renewed, his bosses love him and he's been head writing soaps for seven years.

[Vee]

I'm aware of what they can and can't use her for (and Jackie definitely does not need a contract or a major story). That doesn't mean they have to play her in the stupidest [!@#$%^&*] possible.